What an awful anime Hyperdimension Neptunia is

First line... well... this will be an interesting review, won't it?

I'm not going to mince my words, it was a real struggle watching Hyperdimension Neptunia. From bad voice acting to terrible plot, breaking the 4th wall, and terrible fan service, there's very little this anime does right... Peashy being one of those few things.

I didn't have high hopes for Neptunia when starting out, as I'd heard it was quite mediocre, but I didn't expect it to be as bad as it was. Whilst it felt very much like a game, it also failed to hit home the defining aspects of a game, and failed to be a decent anime in the process.

English Name:

Hyperdimension Neptunia

Japanese Name:

超次元ゲイム ネプテューヌ THE ANIMATION

Studio:

David Production

Episodes Watched:

13/13

Posted on:

14/May/2019 at 16:06

The overall art isn't really anything special

I can't really mark Neptunia down for its artwork. Although it's nothing outstanding, there isn't really anything wrong with it.
Whether it's the world, the attacks, the explosions, or the word art, everything is quite generic, and doesn't really stand out on either end of the quality spectrum, when compared to other anime.

For the most part, the character designs are quite well done, and follow a consistent style. However, there are a few characters which seem to stand out, most notably Linda and Arfoire, whose style doesn't fit well with the rest of the anime. Yes, they're meant to stand out, but it's almost a completely different art style.

Speaking of characters, we should look a little more at the CPUs.

In their normal form, they're nothing really worth talking about, apart from Vert and Nep, which we'll return to. However, when they're transformed, it's just pure fan service. Their powers are always shown as overpowered, apart from in their last fight, and for the most part serves no purpose. Alongside this, the transformation takes our cute little Peashy and makes her into something less adorable.

Back to Vert and Nep. Whilst Neptune has no issues breaking the fourth wall in an obvious way, Vert goes about it slightly more subtly, but both of them manage to break any immersion you could find with occasional lines of dialogue which make the characters seem self-aware.
Although Noire has a line referring to raising a flag, that doesn't take you out of the show, as that's a perfectly normal line. But when Neptune says something along the lines of "Today's show is for fan service" you're kicked out of the screen, and back into the real world.

If the main characters don't ruin it for you, the enemies surely will.

In true video game fashion the first boss you beat will come back at a later stage. This is good, it still works extremely well in an anime. 
However, what doesn't work is when your first boss has an amazing plan which almost kills all of those which could stop them, but then comes back a second time with an aubergine farm... Yeah, no big guns, no super-duper magic... Vegetables.

But the final boss is still powerful right? Yes, yes she is! And she's the invincible until you're at super low health, and have very little time left, type of boss. (my least favourite kind)
But the boss being invincible isn't too much of an issue. What is an issue is the terrible dialogue throughout the entire fight, and even some lines sounding like a different voice actress did them. It was a good plot twist... but it was so poorly executed that it couldn't be capitalised on.

And then to top it all off, the first boss returns at the end to save the people she's been trying to kill this entire time. IT MAKES NO SENSE!

All in all, it feels like the anime was rushed through production, and isn't really deserving of having the Hyperdimension Neptunia name associated with it.

I could rant more about how bad the anime is, but there is no point in explaining how every scene in every episode had its flaws. All you need to know is Peashy is adorable, but isn't worth watching the entire anime for.

I started watching Nisekoi today, and will be finishing Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai tomorrow, but who knows what I'll talk about next. Hopefully, it won't be something as dreadful as Hyperdimension Neptunia. But until then, じゃね!see ya